As we know, Suzhou is one of the most popular tourist destinations in China, but do you know how much the tourism industry has contributed to the development of Suzhou economy? In 2016, Suzhou received 115 million domestic tourists and 2 million overseas tourists. Does anyone know how many Suzhou citizens we have? 12 million, it means the number of visitors to Suzhou each year is almost ten times the population of Suzhou and they spent a total of 208 billion RMB in Suzhou in 2016, which accounted for 6.27% of the GDP of Suzhou. Obviously, tourism has become one of the most important supporting industries of Suzhou according to the research, which says one industry must be the supporting industry only if its contribution to GDP is in excess of 5 percent.

What kinds of fieIds would they like to spend? I think most of us like traveling, so just think of what we might spend when we travel to other cities. First of all we will take a plane or a train to reach our destination. Then we will buy tickets to visit some local attractions such as the Humble Administrator’s Garden, Tongli Water Town in Suzhou. We also need to eat and sleep. What’s more, we might also enjoy a wonderful performance and buy some local souvenirs. All in all, six industries would benefit from the development of tourism directly, namely transportation, accommodation, sightseeing, eating, entertainment and shopping.

In fact, I found out more than 100 other industries would also benefit from the development of the tourism industry indirectly when I did my Ph.D. thesis ten years ago. For instance, we have to eat something during our trip, which definitely helps increase the sale of vegetables, rice, fish and meat and so on. It implies that tourism can contribute to the development of agriculture, fishing and poultry industries. Take another example; new hotels are prosperous nowadays with the rapid development of the tourism industry. On one side, more cement, steel, bricks and experienced people are needed when new hotels are being built. On the flip side, there is huge demand for more new beds, chairs, appliances, quilts, bath tubes, lights and so on when they are decorated inside.

In addition, tourism has an intangible influence on the development of Suzhou. More and more foreigners would like to invest, work and live in Suzhou just because they can enjoy the traditional Chinese culture of old Suzhou and the high-quality modern lifestyle in new Suzhou at the same time.

Suzhou really looks like the sublime two-sided embroidery, when 2500-year-old Suzhou combines the new Suzhou-SIP. And consequently, the tourism industry has become more and more of a supporting industry of Suzhou.